In the nineteenth century, when poetry was more widely read and memorized, Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1833) was hugely popular, and no poem of his was more popular and better known than “Ulysses.” Even today many know the rousing call to action, which closes the poem: “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” Ulysses, the Roman name for Odysseus, has returned home an old man after 20 years of fighting in Troy and wandering, and he faces an existential crisis: the tension between his obligation to his wife Penelope, son Telemachus, and his kingdom and his need to continue a personal journey of discovery.
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